Ariola: For Mamang
SOME call her Mommy. Others prefer to call her Mama (without the accent). To those of Hispanic stock, they like the Spanish version Mama` with accent on the first syllable. For me, it’s been always just plain and simple Mamang.
Last Sunday, the entire world gave honor to all the mothers...
Ariola: It’s part of the job
A BROADCASTER friend of mine paid me a visit yesterday to discuss with me my thoughts on the shooting of the late Judge Henry Arles of the RTC of Kabankalan City who was murdered last Tuesday evening while he was on his way home. He was driving his car all by his lonesome. Although he had a gun...
Ariola: Rowdy diners
EVERY once in a while all of us would treat ourselves to a quiet dinner in some fine restaurant within the city. So there we were last Holy Wednesday at the glitzy restaurant called Biboy's (not its real name) at the back of the Goldenfield's Commercial Complex celebrating the birthday of a...
Ariola: Seeds sown
TEACHING, they say, is the most noble of all professions. I could not agree more. Like my mother, I took the path of this vocation for nearly twenty years now - first with the UNO-R College of Criminology and, for the last five years, with the UNO-R School of Law.
Ariola: Na sinsilyohan ko na!
I COULDN’T believe the reaction generated by my last week’s column entitled “Na pisosan.” It turns out that many enjoyed reading my article. Over the weekend, I’ve met a lot of friends and acquaintances who congratulated me about what I wrote. Many of them even shared their own sad experiences...
Ariola: Napisosan
IF YOU are a public-utility-riding commuter, then chances are you've met a taxi driver whose arrogance and discourtesy towards his passengers could really make your day? Well, I met one for the nth time just last week. But of the many haughty drivers I have encountered on the road, the latest is...
Ariola: Impeachment bloopers
IN CRIMINAL law, there is a revered doctrine that the burden of proof always lies with the prosecution. As a corollary to the same doctrine, the prosecution is always called upon to rely on the strength of its evidence and not on the weakness of the evidence for the defense. The burden of proof...
Ariola: In bleak December
I HAVE stopped watching the daily news on TV since Tropical Storm Sendong wreaked havoc in Mindanao and Negros Oriental particularly Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, and Dumaguete City last week. The scenes of the devastation are just too depressing to bear. Cartoon Channel now seems to be a better...
Ariola: It’s about time
AFTER keeping quiet in spite of the repeated verbal abuse he suffered at the hands, or should I say, tongue of P-Noy, Chief Justice Renato C. Corona finally broke his silence and fired back at the president during his speech delivered at the Supreme Court last Monday afternoon.
Ariola: Mr. President, how could you?
THERE are things in this world that will always remain as unchangeable and perennial as the grass. Among them are good manners and right conduct. Yet when no less than the Chief Executive totally disregards the basic tenets of decency and humiliates the Chief Magistrate in the latter’s presence...
Ariola: Hoodwinked
IN OUR local Hiligaynon dialect, it is called “nalutsan”. On the other hand, in Tagalog, it is referred to as “na-isahan”. Literally, both mean “putting one over another.” In English, it means a clever trick, a deception, a ploy, or a ruse.
Now it can be told that DOJ Secretary Leila De...
Ariola: De Lima’s dilemma
IT SEEMS like that DOJ Secretary Leila De Lima has gotten herself into one fine legal mess vis-à-vis the Supreme Court as she has taken an arrogant and defiant stand against the TRO handed down by the High Court in favor of the former president Gloria M. Arroyo’s right to travel.
...
Ariola: The Red Riding Hood
IT CAN only happen in the movies. Or to put it bluntly, only in Philippine cinema can this escapade ever be pulled off. But it did. It was like a well-written script. But daring as it was, the getaway of Ramona Revilla is one big bungle-up for our police officials. Of course, the authorities can...
Ariola: Lack of respect for the Law
HOLLYWOOD actor Jackie Gleason, in his portrayal of Sheriff Buford T. Justice in the Burt Reynolds’ 1977 movie blockbuster “Smokey and the Bandit”, summed it all up in his famous one-liner: “What we’re dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the law.” This quote is just about apt to...
Ariola: What sympathy?
THE labor imbroglio between the PAL management and the PALEA is not doing the country any good at all. Sure, we commiserate with the cry for justice of the embattled union, but we must bear in mind that theirs is an industry imbued with a public interest.
Ariola: The day the world stood still
OVER the weekend, the entire world paused for a while as it commemorated the 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center. It was the day the world stood still. In contemporary human history, the attack was an audacious strike right into the heart of mainland America.
Ariola: When art becomes a sacrilege
BEFORE anything else, let me get this straight, I am no artist. But in spite of my artistic naiveté, I do know how to appreciate art in its varied and wholesome form. Throughout human history, man had continuously expressed himself in almost every form of medium from the Neanderthal caves...
Ariola: A Class Act
SENATOR Mig Zubiri's resignation from the Senate will perhaps go down in the country’s political history as the classiest act ever. Whatever the pundits or the yokels will say, nobody occupying such a lofty elective position has done this before or ever will.
Ariola: The day after
THE first e-mail that I received first thing Tuesday morning of July 26 was from my adopted sister Weena Ledesma, who lamented about the morbid headlines in the early morning news.... “the bus fell from the skyway in Parañaque resulting in the death of 3, Bagyo Juaning hit hard in Luzon with...
Ariola: The vow of poverty
THE scandal that has been wrought by the “SUVishops”, as what some naughty sectors of media had christened (pun unintentional) them, reminds me of the story of three relatively young priests who had just graduated together from the seminary a few years back – Fathers Avanza, Montero, and Durango...
Ariola: The Unremorseful
I TOOK a ride the other day on board my suki taxi driver, Tikoy, as I was going to the office. Hardly had I warmed my seat, Tikoy immediately fired away, as he is always wont to each time I’m his passenger. Our conversation went this way:
Tikoy: Sir, ano man ang mahambal mo sg pagtapungol...
Ariola: Reflections on the 50th Mile
LAST week, this walker turned fifty on the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul. When one gets to live up to this age like myself, one cannot help but be nostalgic and sentimental about how he was able to weather all of life’s storms in the past five decades.
I am reminded of the first two...
Thoughts on Father’s Day
LAST Sunday, the entire world celebrated Father’s Day. Funny but while everybody was exchanging the day’s greetings with friends, a thought occurred to me – after all these years I never got to greet my own father a “Happy Father’s Day.”
For one, I am a child of the 60’s and 70’s where...
Ariola: The Grumbling Dragon
REMEMBER when we were still kids in school? And the class bully? Of course, every class had its own schoolyard thug. He was usually the tallest, the biggest, and the dumbest in class. But because of his immense size, he usually had his way with the rest of his classmates. And nobody would dare...
The Lone Ranger
FOR the past two weeks, the main pre-occupation in this basketball-crazy country of ours was the NBA Finals. When the stage was set for the championship between Miami and Dallas, the Heat was the heavy favorite to win the title over the Mavericks. And why not, Miami boasted of having the “Big...
